How to Get Rid of Your Wife story

ahh2x11 · 1963-12-20

A gentleman and his wife each plot the other's murder. Directed by: Alf Kjellin. Story by: Robert Gould.

19 total · 1 choice · 8 major · 10 minor

Theme	Level	Motivation
spouse murder	choice	As alluded to in the title, the story concerns spouse murder albeit in a more than usually confounded way: Gerald convinced his disagreeable wife, Edith, that he was planning to murder her. But this was all a ruse to provoke her into making an attempt on his own life under circumstances that would see her imprisoned.
coping with a failing marriage	major	Gerald and Edith's marriage was in shambles. Gerald, a mild-mannered man, wanted out but his cartoonishly overbearing wife refused to grant him a divorce.
coping with a nag	major	Edith nagged Gerald to an insane degree. One neighbor said Edith was liable to drive Gerald to suicide.
hell hath no fury like a woman scorned	major	It would seem the final drop that drove Edith to murder, was the revelation that Gerald had resolved to up and leave her in the morning no matter what she said.
husband and wife	major	Gerald and Edith Swinney.
poison murder	major	Edith laced Gerald's hot cocoa with a lethal dose of rat poison. Little did she know that he was one step ahead of her, and dumped the drink in a trophy.
resentment	major	Years of marriage presumably left Gerald and Edith bitter and resentful toward one another.
shrew character	major	Edith was an unpleasant, ill-tempered woman characterized by scolding, nagging, and aggression to a notable degree. Many of her neighbors testified, more or less, to that effect.
suicide	major	Rather than allowing him to leave in the morning, Edith poisoned Gerald's hot cocoa and made out that he had attempted to kill himself. One neighbor said Edith was liable to drive Gerald to suicide.
blackmail	minor	Gerald almost had it made, in the end, when he was confronted by an unattractive woman from whom he bought the rats with which he had tricked his ex-wife. The rat peddler blackmailed him into starting a relationship with her, we gather.